Putting Laura Pausini’s voice at the opening of a hip hop album, as Lazza did at the beginning of the new Locuraamong the most anticipated albums of the year, indicates having reached a certain status. He was quick to write on social media that it is not a move wanted by the record label, a way to get mutual publicity and cross their respective fan bases as happens in most of the duets we listen to, but a song born with the sincere intent to collaborate. It makes you believe him, but for this very reason we add that now, if we have to do the math, an operation of this kind is more convenient for Pausini than for Lazza: she, even physiologically, represents that pop that has been put in the attic by rap, while he is in the spotlight and, by necessity, pulls the cart of Italian music. Again, there is no bad faith, the issue is another: having her in these conditions certifies the rise of rap, it is a sort of recognitiona passing of the baton. It is Lazza, or rather, who sits at the table of the greats. And he does it on his own terms.

How Lazza Became “Everyone’s”

It is no mystery that for some time he had been harbouring the ambition of becoming “for everyone”. With the previous Siriusbetween 2022 and 2023, almost reached diamond status, marking what is now a classic of trap that flows into urban and pure rap, but the listeners were still mostly very young, with radio stations that didn’t play it and a part of the real country that simply ignored it. The doors opened for him were his participation in Sanremo in 2023 and a song, above all, that sought a minimum compromise with the world out there as it is Ashproduced by Dardust. An operation that was so successful that last February he returned to the Ariston, this time as guest of honor, to launch the next 100 messagesanother hit that has accompanied us so far, with a piano that has replaced the trap snare drums and the rhymes, however with the usual verve violent, which tell of a love story that ended (as indeed Ash). That’s how the mechanism was triggered, people started talking about it, and despite some intolerance ‒ he gives the impression of being bitter about the fact that some long-time fans tell him he’s become “too pop”, but they’re a minority ‒ he hit the mark. Also thanks to a character who’s less banal than you might think: someone who hugs his mother on live TV, who is a true musician and studied and he presents himself as a positive role model for young people, a self made rapper. Because, precisely, Lazza does not forget that he is a rapper.

The risk of discs like Locura ‒ which, in fact, is born with these expectations and these ambitions ‒ is to water down, to betray oneself. It happens more frequently than it seems, the cost of leaving the old audience behind for the new is that, sometimes, of becoming one of many. He comes out on top, not only with the usual bunch of dark productions that mainstream pop has assimilated ‒ they’re all potential singles, the streaming charts beware ‒ but above all thanks to a mix of more battle-hardened tracks (Hot, Fentanyl) and other introspective ones, which tell the dark aspects of the fame and great success that has invested him in the last year (Darkness ahead). And all this without talking to himself or giving the impression of a bored star, but carrying on the conversation in an engaging way: if you just scroll through the list of collaborations to realize how great a release this is for Italian rap as a whole (there are Lil Baby, Guè, Marracash, Ghali, Kid Yugi and the omnipresent Sfera Ebbasta), the prodigy is accomplished above all in the metric interlocking, in a suffocating flow that always grows, with inspired lyrics that, in full Lazza style, give no respite, are strictly rap, but also lend themselves to the most profane ear.

A potential to be discovered

Now: beyond the proclamations, including these, for the general public many rappers continue to be strange animals, who play in a league of their own. Sfera Ebbasta himself, for example, despite impressive numbers and a notable evolution, especially as a melodist, for some remains a public danger, a misunderstood person with young fans; a child of his time, rather than a classic. Guè, instead, moving on to another generation, due to his close proximity to the codes of hip hop is sometimes difficult to fully understand for those who are not in the loop. And a Geolier, who in the last year has followed a path similar to that of Lazza, from the best seller of gender in Sanremo, whether because of an anti-southern feeling, it remains the same, partly divisive. Lazza ‒ again, net of some early fans he left behind ‒ has the potential to really reach everyone, as among his colleagues only Marracash has managed, in an absolute sense, who has opened an intimate, personal and social path to rap that Locura retraces only in part, and in any case in its own way. This is the first piece, but there are many outlets: the story of the protagonist’s paranoia, for example, is much more effective and transversal than what Sfera Ebbasta did in the last X2VR. And it is for aspects like these that one comes to think that Lazza has enormous potential in terms of audience, that he can reach even those who are not fans of hip hop more than others without denying himself. For now, a duet like this one with Laura Pausini already says enough: that his project is already a reality; and that, beyond everything, it will remain.